


The World of the Queensguard

by Totally_not_a_Weeb



Series: The Queensguard-verse [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Historians, Kings & Queens, Royalty, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-25 22:32:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14987009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Totally_not_a_Weeb/pseuds/Totally_not_a_Weeb
Summary: What happens when Totally_not_a_Weeb tries to do worldbuilding. This is for the setting used in "The Queensguard" and is told from the point of view of multiple characters to allow for different stories to be told.





	1. The History of the Empire of Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Queensguard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14937458) by [Totally_not_a_Weeb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Totally_not_a_Weeb/pseuds/Totally_not_a_Weeb). 



> Help I need to be removed from my Keyboard, but what else is new.
> 
> I would love if anyone would leave a Kudos or a Comment.

"Before any concrete history, before the Rise of High Prophetess Joan, before the Dawn of the Creed of the Seven on the Continent of Ustraosma, there was the Dawn Empire.

 

Indeed that is what History remembers them as; an Empire that seemed to begin at the Dawn of Time itself, though records of this time period, remembered as the 'Dawn of Ages', are scarce and actually useful sources are rarer still, as most of this age and as such, the history of the Empire is as shrouded in myth as the Rising of the High Prophetess herself and the fact that the Empire pre-dates the History of the Creed means that there are no real reliable sources to work with.

 

Though one thing that historians agree on: is that the Empire did exist, this is because the Empire, in a way, lives on through the buildings that they left behind, such buildings are:

 

  * The Arena in Summermount
  * The Citadel of Lindisfarne, oft called 'The Witch Queen's Citadel'
  * The many estates that litter the landscape of Ustraosma
  * The Port of Dritia
  * The Museum of Dara



 

There are more things about their empire that outlived their empire, such as the written word, though that is not as important, historians dispute how far the Empire's borders stretched, I believe that at its prime, the Empire Stretched from Lindisfarne to the River Umbra, which would've been most of Ustraosma (known today as The Continent), I also believe that they held land on Ngozoslaku (known as the Southern Continent), as records do mention overseas holdings, which were, in stark contrast to the Dritian Holdings on Ngozoslaku, the safest place to in the Empire due to its relative security. Though of course, this was during the Empire's Prime.

 

Records that date back to the year 1000 BG, show that the Empire was not always that, during this time period, the Kingdom, under the leadership of King Julianus the Bold,  took part in what was known as 'The War of the Four Kings' in 950 BG, due to the nature of Julianus' personality, the names of the other three kingdoms or their kings are lost to the ages, this is largely due to the fact that the Emperors of the Dawn Empire had a reported habit of being extremely petty and wiping the names of those who were defeated from the history books, such practices mean that the compiling of history during this period is considered to be the equivalent of giving a historian a heart attack yourself.

 

What is known is that after the War of the Four Kings, the Dawn Empire as it would become known, signed a victorious peace with the other kingdoms and annexed what land they could and made the remainders of the Kingdoms into their vassals, who would later be integrated into the Empire a century later, in 845 BG. Though such practices are considered barbaric in modern feudal society, it was the rule of the day during that time period. During this time, it was when the Dawn Empire was officially formed, with the crowning of Julianus Vatinious, the Bold, the Bane of Kings, as Emperor of the Dawn Empire and the Four Kingdoms, Lord of Lindisfarne, King of the Frost and Lord Protector of the Realm, referred to as 'the Emperor of Dawn' in most historical texts for the sake of brevity.

 

Emperor Julianus the Bold was an emperor who is shrouded in myth, it was believed that no mortal blade could possibly fell him, that he had the blood of a dragon, that he was the embodiment of their God of Swordplay and that he was immortal. Though such boasts would prove to be incorrect as he died at the age of 95 during the year 892 BG.

 

Upon his death, the Empire fractured internally as rule was handed over to his son, Emperor Gnaeous the Disappointing, the name was the apt considering his particular lack of any talent, his only point of talent was in Naval Affairs, though this was basically useless considering the state that the Empire was in, with the Mountain tribes rising, which forced Gnaeous into the only battle that he fought in his life, the Battle of Three Armies, where he brought the Imperial Army, equipped with the best weapons and armour in the Empire to the Khmour Mountain Range, where with some of the worst tactics known at the time, he managed to defeat the Mountain Tribes who outnumbered him three to one, though lacked any sort of training and tactics with tactics that amounted to little more than charging.

 

After the Battle of Three Armies, Gnaeous the Disappointing showed another trait that made him different from other Emperors, he actually did not remove the names of the defeated from the History Books, though that might be because of the fact that the Leaders of the Tribes never had their names recorded down and they were remembered as the 'Tribes of Khmour', the political strife was still present in the Empire and would be fixed by Gnaeous' uncle, Prince Augustus the Worthy, most known for his political reforms in the Empire.

 

During the next few hundred years, not much happened in the Empire, it largely stagnated and built estates. Aside from the diminishing power of the Emperor and the decline of the Imperial family from House Vaintinious to House Scapula and the interesting reign of Empress Novia, commonly known as 'the Succubus' for the fact that she was the mother of a dozen bastards and was rumoured to be able to seduce a man by looking at him.

 

While the Line of Emperors from Gnaeous to Novia might make one think that the Empire was dying, it was still alive. After the ascension of Emperor Stephanium, often regarded as 'the Lewd' because of his talents that were similar to that of his Grandmother, after his ascension is when I consider the beginning of the fall for the Dawn Empire."

 

\- The History of the Dawn Empire, by Duke Robin of the Ashbridge Alliance, the Scholar


	2. The Witch Queen's War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take me away from this goddamn keyboard, help.

"The Ascension of Emperor Stephanium the Lewd is sometimes regarded as the beginning of the end for the Empire of the Dawn.

 

Though from the opening parts of his reign one would be forgiven for thinking that his worst thing was the fact that he often preferred the company of men in all things and his reluctance for marriage.

 

Eventually, because of political reasons, he took a woman, Aurelia the Chaste, for his wife. At this point, Stephanium also received the epithet of 'the Impotent' due to the lack of children that resulted from this marriage despite his well-known lewd tendencies.

 

After she passed away in the year 550 BG, Stephanium, painfully aware of his need for a child to continue the dynasty, took a woman who is known, at the time, as Oynx the Prodigy for his bride, few records remain of the woman due to the nature of Emperors who desire for showing their total victory in everything. This lack of knowledge is shown through the fact that there is only one remaining portrait of her, which was shown in one of the old palaces of the Emperors, which is in the ironically named 'Dead Lands', her portrait shows her as a woman who was small of stature, with long raven hair she was rather thin and her features could be described as demure.

 

One of her few defining features was her mastery of the magical arts as well as a mastery of tactics, both pursuits she reportedly mastered at the young age of twenty-one, a year before she was taken as the Emperor's bride.

 

This union proved to be just as childless as the last, the only major result of note was that Empress Oynx the Prodigy made several far-reaching reforms in the Empire, both relating to the role of women in the Empire to allow them to take a more active role in society as well as reforms on the role of magic as well, making it more prominent and allowing for mages to study at a tower, a place that would now be known as 'The County of Magi'. These popular reforms allowed the Empress to gather a large power base within the Empire despite the fact that she was not in the line for succession.

 

When Emperor Stephanium the Impotent died of a wound sustained in a hunting accident in the year 547 BG, Oynx sought to take power in a coup d'état, which is regarded as the beginning of the Witch Queen's War.

 

Her ascension was contested by her brother-in-law, Emperor Francis the Honourable, who was both a man, the next in line for succession and had large elements of the Imperial Army and the traditionalists on his side. Many had believed that Civil War had been avoided when Oynx immediately stepped aside when Francis demanded his throne and withdrew her supporters and some elements of the court to the island of Lindisfarne, where she plotted her rise to power.

 

A year later, in 546 BG, despite her Oath of Allegiance to her brother-in-law, she raised the flag of rebellion, claiming that Stephanium had given her the Empire on his deathbed, such claims could not be easily disproven due to the fact that she was the only one in the bedchamber of the Emperor when he died, though due to the lack of a witness, or a will, it would be equally hard to prove such claims, as such, this claim was reported to be a fabrication.

 

Despite the fact that she had no claim to the throne, the elements that she had won the support of in the past had rallied to her banner, allowing her to reportedly amass a small host of fifteen thousand soldiers, while this host was considered small, she had many great and ambitious generals, whose names have been lost to history, under her command and more importantly, she had her ability in magic.

 

Emperor Francis, in comparison, had seventy-five thousand soldiers under his command, in theory, in actuality, the days of the legions of professional soldiers that had won the War of the Four Kings had long since passed, in exchange, an early feudal system was adopted with most of the armies being made up of the levy of lesser lords, though Emperor Francis still did have a personal legion of a thousand men, such companies were considered to be an imperial right, while Francis possessed the advantage in numbers and in resources, he was not planning for this war unlike his sister-in-law, who had spent three years as Empress and a year in exile preparing for war.

 

The opening of the war was the Seige of Dara, a coastal city that would go on to form the Darian Republic, Oynx had seized the city and forced its surrender with the use of trebuchets and her own magic prowess, it was this siege that earned her the title of 'The Witch Queen', her host split up and seized to coastline for the rebel forces, exaggerated reports of the devastation wrought in Dara had made its way to the Coastal Cities in the Empire and made most surrender to the Witch Queen immediately.

 

The First Battle of the War was the battle of the Five Fjords, where Oynx's host of fifteen thousand fought with the loyalist army, which was twenty-thousand soldiers who had been raised there, this army was led by Emperor Francis himself. While Francis was an able tactician and an almost legendary swordsman and was never defeated in single combat, the problem was the fact that Oynx knew this and refused to meet him in single combat, assaulting the centre of his army with magic while the flanks were treated to the assault of 'The Twin Fangs' two of the generals who Oynx had support from, as well as making use of the terrain at the Five Fjords, she was able to easily outflank the army. By the end of the day, the Witch Queen had won her first battle and Emperor Francis was humbled but alive, having been able to escape the attempted encirclement retreated his damaged personal legion to a Keep in Welesca where he sought to muster the rest of the Imperial Army to him.

 

The Witch Queen took several cities and let out her anger at the escape of her brother-in-law on the city of The Forge, where the finest armour and weapons in the Dawn Empire was wrought.

 

After conscripting most of the politically apathetic peasantry in the surrounding countryside to her cause and arming them with weapons that were finer than anything she had seen in their lives, she had boosted her army up to twenty-thousand, it was also here that she forged her famous armour and crown.

 

A set of armour that looked similar to the fine court dress of the noblewomen, but it was outfitted with plates of Mythril and were painted an icy blue, reportedly to show her family's colours, her crown was the same colour as her dress and was 'a vicious looking piece of metal' and reportedly was used as a stabbing implement against her opponents in an emergency, though such claims were never proven.

 

The next few months were filled with minor skirmishes between the two sides, as well as Oynx training her militia, though they did not make good soldiers, but 'excellent arrow fodder and foragers' according to one of Oynx's generals.

 

The Second Major battle of the war came on the fields of Welesca in what is now known as 'The Bloody Valley' this marks one of the most bloody battles of the war, with Francis away at the Senate of the Dawn Empire to convince them to help fund the war effort, he left a small group of minor lords in command of the army. The soldiers were well fed and equipped, they were in prepared defensive locations and they were well trained as well. The only problem was that while the lesser lords had supplied the bulk of the army, numbering twenty-thousand, they did not have military experience and all disagreed on the correct course of action, the young Lord Bolton led his two and a half thousand into the vanguard, which while catching the Witch Queen's vanguard unprepared and almost won the war right there as his personal bodyguard got close to the Witch Queen, only to be stopped by her personal bodyguard who slew the young lord on the spot.

 

Two of the lords had wisely decided upon taking up the defensive positions that had been prepared, but the rest of the lords decided that seeing the success of Lord Bolton in almost ending the war, they decided that they should also charge the Witch Queen's vanguard, such an idea did not work, the Witch Queen was more prepared for such an assault and had moved the rest of the centre of her army to battlefield, the ten thousand five hundred who followed the lords were virtually wiped out within half an hour. The remaining seven thousand, led by the Duke of Welesca himself, Duke Henry Darkmane. From his position of relative safety from the prepared defences, he made use of the army's archers and Bastille to bombard the Witch Queen's army.

 

Under such bombardment, the Witch Queen moved her army up, knowing that she could not last under a sustained bombardment, she was believed to have flown into the air and reign down fire upon the prepared defences of Duke Darkmane, this is believed due to the fact that when Emperor Francis arrived with his personal legion, the Bloody Valley was already burning.

 

Knowing when a battle is lost he retreated with his personal legion.

 

The last major battle during the war was the Battle of Summermount, a small town at the time, the town was at the centre for the final battle in the Witch Queen's War, her army was held up in the town, trying to avoid a protracted siege, the Witch Queen sallied out with her forces in an attempt to catch her brother-in-law off guard. Unfortunately for her, he was expecting such an impatient move from her.

 

The Witch Queen had ten thousand soldiers left from both minor skirmishes and the Battle of the Bloody Valley and Emperor Francis had thirty-five thousand to his name.

 

It is ultimately poetic that the fight over the rulership of the Empire came down to single combat, with the Witch Queen's bodyguard leading the rest of the vanguard and the Witch Queen cut off from her men, she was alone against her brother-in-law.

 

There was a clash of swords, magic flaring and swords flashing, the Empire's fate resting in the balance of a single duel and then, the Witch Queen's guard was a little too high and that was all that Francis needed to end the war.

 

Upon hearing of the death of their Queen, the host scattered and her remaining generals spent two months in their holdouts before they were forced to sign the Treaty of Welesca in order to save their skin.

 

There are a number of results of the Witch Queen's war, one of the primary results was the reunification of the Empire. It, however, could be argued that Francis' honour would prove to be the undoing of the Empire as when he was signing the peace treaty, he had demanded that the remainder of the Witch Queen's Host, be exiled to the island of Lindisfarne, while it made the Emperor loved, it also made many believe that he was weak and soft. Many criminals thought that 'If the Emperor is soft of treachery, he wouldn't do much to us.' which set a president for the breaking of Imperial Authority that even Francis' more violent crackdowns on the thieves guilds and smugglers rings couldn't undo.

 

In short, while Francis the honourable won the war, he lost the peace."

 

\- The Fall of Empires, by Azure the Odd, Keeper of Knowledge


	3. Continental Politics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please take me away from this keyboard, I just spent a couple dozen minutes writing this and I need help.

"The political landscape of the Continent can be broadly divided up into five different categories:

 

  * The Sister Kingdoms and Affiliated States
  * The Tribal Confederation
  * The Kingdom of Starford
  * The Republics
  * Non-Aligned States



 

Those that fall under the category of 'Non-Aligned' include such countries as, the Free Peoples of Welesca, the League of Free Cities, the Jarldom of Lindisfarne, the County of Magi, the Tribes of the Umbra Steppe and any other small independent county. They tend to be characterised by not really interfering or mattering in Continental Politics except in special circumstances.

 

The Sister Kingdoms and Affiliated States, of course, includes the squabbling political and military alliance that is known as the Sister Kingdoms. The affiliated states include the Kingdom of North Sheyethen, the Holy States, the Sacred Order of the Holy Lance, the Archduchy of Cappadocia and the Kingdom of Deolodre. These tend to be characterised by being united in the faith of the Goddess and by generally assisting each other in Continental Politics, it can generally be assumed that when attacking one of those states, you would be gaining the ire of every other Gaian State.

 

The Republics include the Darian Republic and the Dritian Republic, though these states tend to disagree, they do have the same broad agenda, when it comes to Continental politics, they would want free trade throughout the Continent, especially maritime trade and naval security being guaranteed by them. Though they disagree and would even blockade each other, they would not take the conquest of the other lightly and would see it as a threat to their trade, such actions might very well result in an embargo at the best of times and actual raiding of trade at the worst.

 

The Tribal Confederation, despite appearing on the map as a large united blob in the North is actually a large military and political alliance made up of various squabbling tribes. While there is some internal strife between the tribes, the group does put up a united front in the case of an external threat. The declaration of war on one of these groups is as good as declaring war on all of them, with all the overwhelming force that it entails.

 

The Kingdom of Starford is a rather large kingdom, it would be the size of an empire if not for the Cappadocian Revolt. The Kingdom is 'united' in the faith of the Nameless One, such a thing means that their agenda is often warlike and expansionist. Though after the Regency, their foreign policy has turned to Revanchism and influencing nearby regions now that their military might is not as considerable.

 

These groups do have much more detail and nuance to them, but for the fledgeling lord, these nuances are not all that important."

 

\- The Minor Nobles guide to the Continent, by Lord Jacob Darkmane


End file.
